Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday he believes an agreement allowing for Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea will remain in place beyond its Saturday expiration.

Erdogan told reporters at the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, that there were ongoing talks about extending the deal, and that he planned to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin upon returning from the summit.

The United Nations and Turkey brokered deals with Ukraine and Russia in July to allow for Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports with vessels screened in Turkey, and for Russia to export food and fertilizer.

The U.N. says about 11 million tons of grain and foodstuffs have been exported to 42 countries since the deal began.

Russia launched waves of airstrikes on Ukraine Tuesday, targeting 10 regions, including the capital of Kyiv, in a military rebuke to Ukrainians reveling in one of their biggest wartime successes, last week’s takeover of the key southern city of Kherson.

Air raid alerts sounded throughout the country. The barrage of nearly 100 strikes — including with missiles — followed days of euphoria in Ukraine after the Russian retreat from Kherson and the Ukrainian takeover of the regional capital that Moscow’s forces had captured early in the nearly nine-month war.

In Bali, Indonesia, at the meeting of the leaders of the Group of 20 largest industrialized countries, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan condemned the Russian airstrikes.

“It is not lost on us that, as world leaders meet at the G-20 in Bali to discuss the issues of significant importance to the lives and livelihoods of people around the world, Russia again threatens those lives and destroys Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. These Russian strikes will serve to only deepen the concerns among the G20 about the destabilizing impact of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war,” Sullivan said in a statement. “We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

With its battlefield defeats, Russia has resorted to more long-range aerial attacks on Ukraine’s power grid as winter approaches, believing it to be a demoralizing psychological weapon to leave Ukrainians in the cold and dark.

White House correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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The United States and Western allies say they cannot confirm but are investigating reports on Tuesday that a blast in NATO member Poland resulted from stray Russian missiles, while Russia’s defense ministry denies any connection to the blast.

“We are aware of the press reports alleging that two Russian missiles have struck a location inside Poland on the Ukrainian border. I can tell you that we don’t have any information at this time to corroborate those reports and are looking into this further,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon.

Watch: President Joe Biden Speaking From Bali

The Polish government has not immediately confirmed the report, but one spokesman, Piotr Muller, told The Associated Press that top leaders were holding an emergency meeting over the “crisis situation.”

The White House said President Joe Biden had spoken with Polish President Andrzej Duda from Bali, Indonesia, at 5:30 a.m. local time, without providing further details.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said via Twitter that he also had spoken with Duda about the explosion and offered his condolences for the loss of life. Reports say at least two Polish citizens were killed.

“NATO is monitoring the situation, and Allies are closely consulting. Important that all facts are established,” Stoltenberg said.

Eliot Higgins, the founder of the investigative journalism and open-source intelligence group Bellingcat, reposted a social media image of the debris from the alleged site in Poland and noted that it appeared to be from an air defense missile, like the S-300s used by Ukraine to shoot down Russian missiles. If confirmed, this could mean the blast potentially originated from a Ukrainian intercept of a Russian missile targeting Ukrainian territory.

Asked what the incident could mean for the administration, Ryder declined to discuss hypotheticals, adding, “When it comes to our security commitments and Article Five, we’ve been crystal clear that we will defend every inch of NATO territory.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley are to host the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group meeting virtually at the Pentagon on Wednesday. Ryder said Ukraine would provide a battlefield assessment, which would lead to a “robust discussion on Ukraine’s security needs.”

Russia launched waves of airstrikes on Ukraine Tuesday, targeting 10 regions, including the capital of Kyiv, in a military rebuke to Ukrainians reveling in one of their biggest wartime successes, last week’s takeover of the key southern city of Kherson.

The airstrikes rocked Ukraine from east to west, hitting energy facilities and other infrastructure, as well as residential buildings in Kyiv, where one death was reported.

A video in Kyiv, published by a presidential aide, showed a five-story building, apparently a residential structure, on fire. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said three residential buildings were hit but that air defense units shot down other missiles.

A senior Ukrainian official, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, characterized the situation as “critical” and urged people to cut back on their power usage and “hang in there.” Power provider DTEK announced emergency blackouts in Kyiv, and authorities took similar steps elsewhere, too.

Air raid alerts sounded throughout the country. The barrage of nearly 100 strikes — including with missiles — followed days of euphoria in Ukraine after the Russian retreat from Kherson and the Ukrainian takeover of the regional capital that Moscow’s forces had captured early in the nearly 9-month war.

In Bali, Indonesia, at the meeting of the leaders of the Group of 20 largest industrialized countries, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan condemned the Russian airstrikes.

“It is not lost on us that, as world leaders meet at the G-20 in Bali to discuss the issues of significant importance to the lives and livelihoods of people around the world, Russia again threatens those lives and destroys Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. These Russian strikes will serve to only deepen the concerns among the G20 about the destabilizing impact of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war,” Sullivan said in a statement. “We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

With its battlefield defeats, Russia has resorted to more long-range aerial attacks on Ukraine’s power grid as winter approaches, believing it to be a demoralizing psychological weapon to leave Ukrainians in the cold and dark.

Ukrainian officials reported strikes Tuesday in Lviv, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi and Rivne in the west, and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in the northeast. Several missiles also hit Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s native city, according to Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the military administration in Kryvyi Rih.

Ukrainian officials were working frantically to restore water and power in Kherson and begin to investigate alleged Russian abuses there and in surrounding communities.

Matilda Bogner, the head of the United Nations human rights office’s monitoring mission in Ukraine, on Tuesday decried a “dire humanitarian situation” in Kherson. She said her teams are trying to verify allegations of nearly 80 cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention and “understand whether the scale is in fact larger than what we have documented already.”

Zelenskyy on Tuesday said a “real and complete cessation of hostilities” will result if Russia withdraws all its troops from Ukraine and restores Ukrainian control to his country’s territory along the border with Russia.

Speaking virtually to the world leaders at the G-20 summit, Zelenskyy said delays in bringing an end to the conflict mean the deaths of more Ukrainians and more threats to the world.

“I am convinced now is the time when the Russian destructive war must and can be stopped,” Zelenskyy said.

The Ukrainian leader’s comments followed a visit Monday to Kherson where he told Ukrainian troops that the country is “ready for peace.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined Monday to comment on Zelenskyy’s visit to Kherson but said, “This territory is part of the Russian Federation.”

Russia illegally annexed the region last month, along with three other territories in Ukraine.

White House correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this report. Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
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Poland is increasing the readiness of some of its military units, government officials said Tuesday, after unconfirmed reports that stray Russian missiles killed two people near the country’s border with Ukraine.

Polish President Andrzej Duda, who spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, was reportedly considering whether to call urgent consultations with NATO leaders under the alliance’s Article 4. The article allows NATO members to bring any issue of concern, especially regarding security, for discussion at the North Atlantic Council. 

A NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the alliance was looking into the reports, as was the U.S. National Security Council, The Associated Press reported. The Russian Defense Ministry has denied the allegations. 

What is NATO Article 4? 

The article allows NATO members to bring any issue of concern, especially regarding security, for discussion at the North Atlantic Council. Article 4 does not mean there will be direct pressure to act. 

Under Article 4, any member state can convene a meeting of NATO members to “consult” when it feels its independence or security is threatened. In practice, it has rarely been used; regardless, it sends a strong message to the greater world that NATO is concerned about the situation. 

What is NATO Article 5? 

The principle of collective defense — meaning that an attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all allies — is the keystone of NATO. It states that an “armed attack” against one member is an attack against all and sets in motion the possibility of collective self-defense. 

However, it commits each NATO member to “assist the party or parties so attacked” and to take “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.” It does not automatically result in military action. 

How would NATO decide to invoke either article? 

In theory, Articles 4 and 5 could be invoked only at the request of a NATO member. 

Since the alliance’s creation in 1949, Article 4 has been invoked seven times, most recently on February 24, 2022, when Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia requested to hold consultations under Article 4 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Article 5 has been invoked only once, immediately following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks against the United States. 

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty contributed to this article. Some material for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press. 
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Seeking a boost in upcoming elections, the Turkish president wants to show he can help avert rising world food prices. Dorian Jones reports.
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A team of U.N. investigators finds both Ukrainian and Russian prisoners of war have been subjected to torture and ill-treatment by their captors. The report is based on interviews over the past several months with 159 POWs, including 20 women held by the Russian Federation and 175 male POWs held by Ukraine.

The investigators report only Ukraine has granted them confidential access to Russian prisoners of war in places of internment. They say Russia did not grant them similar access, so they have conducted interviews with Ukrainian POWs upon their release.

Speaking from Kyiv, the head of the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, said Ukrainian prisoners of war told her team they were beaten immediately upon capture. Some had their personal belongings pillaged.

When they arrived at certain Russian internment centers, Bogner noted the POWs said they were subjected to prolonged beatings, threats, dog attacks, were stripped and put into stress positions.  

Bogner said the mission has received information that nine POWs have died during these so-called admission procedures since mid-April. She said her team is working now to corroborate these reported deaths.

“The vast majority of those we interviewed told us that during their internment they were tortured and ill-treated,” she said. “Torture and ill-treatment were not only used to coerce prisoners of war to give military information or statements about alleged crimes. They were, interviewees told us, used on a daily basis to intimidate and humiliate them.”  

Bogner said the U.N. mission has documented cases of Russian POWs subjected to torture and ill-treatment by members of the Ukrainian armed forces. According to Bogner, some of the men said they were punched and kicked after surrendering and when interrogated. Others said they were stabbed or given electric shocks by Ukrainian law enforcement officers or military personnel guarding them.

“There have been allegations, credible allegations of summary executions carried out by Ukrainian armed forces,” she said. “These happened earlier on in the conflict. The authorities, Ukrainian authorities have opened investigations into those allegations. But we have not seen progress in the investigations thus far.”  

Bogner said she and her team have not yet been to the southern port city of Kherson, which Ukraine recently recaptured from Russia. She noted U.N. monitors have conducted investigations in several nearby villages which were abandoned by the Russian forces in the past few weeks. 

She said they have “documented over 70 – almost 80 – cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions” in the area. 

Bogner said the mission will investigate alleged war crimes, and violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that may have been committed by Russian forces in Kherson.
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Roberto Saviano, Italy’s best-known anti-Mafia author and a leading human rights campaigner, is due to stand trial in Rome on Tuesday for calling Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni a “bastard.”

If convicted of the libel charge Saviano, 43, could in theory face up to three years’ imprisonment, but under Italy’s legal system a fine of at least about $520 (500 euros) or a suspended sentence are more likely.

“I’ll defend the legitimacy of the critique of Power, even when it is harsh. I have always argued my criticism and I will also do so in court,” the author said in written remarks to Reuters before the first hearing.

A spokesperson for the prime minister’s party did not respond to a request for comment.

Meloni sued Saviano following a December 2020 TV interview in which he lambasted her and fellow right-wing leader Matteo Salvini over their attacks on migrant rescue NGOs.

“All the bullshit [said about NGOs], sea taxis, cruises [for migrants],” he said. “All I can say is: bastards, how could you? Meloni, Salvini: bastards.”

Saviano spoke after seeing footage of a sea rescue by Spanish NGO Open Arms in which a six-month old baby from Guinea died before he could be airlifted to Italy.

Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party was then in opposition, responded with legal action against the “serial hater” Saviano.

Their court battle will play out against a backdrop of disputes between migrant rescue charities and Italy’s new right-wing government.

Rome authorities accuse NGO ships of acting illegally, and last week refused to let one of them dock in Italy, forcing it to sail to France and provoking a bitter row with the French government.

Saviano, who has lived under 24-hour police protection since his 2006 breakthrough book “Gomorrah,” an expose on the Naples mafia that was adapted into a movie and a TV series, was unrepentant about his attack on Meloni.

“What should I be apologizing for? For doing my duty to criticize Power, as all intellectuals should do?” he said.

Saviano faces two more defamation cases pitting him against Salvini, now deputy prime minister, and Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano.

The PEN International writers’ association has urged Meloni to drop her lawsuit.

“Pursing your case against him would send a chilling message to all journalists and writers in the country, who may no longer dare to speak out for fear of reprisals,” it said.
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The Israeli so-called Law of Return says that anyone with one Jewish grandparent can immigrate to Israel and receive Israeli citizenship. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to draft 300,000 men to fight in the war against Ukraine has prompted thousands of Russians to move to Israel, with tens of thousands of others on the way. Linda Gradstein reports from Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. VOA footage by Ricki Rosen.
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The European Union on Monday slapped new sanctions on Iran for its crackdown on anti-government protesters and launched a mission to train 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers in member states.

European foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday imposed travel bans and asset freezes on 29 Iranians, including high-ranking members of the country’s Revolutionary Guard and Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi.

Four Iranian organizations are also targeted, as the EU hardens its response to Tehran’s crackdown on a massive protest movement that erupted following the September death of a young woman in Iranian police custody. On Monday, Iran issued its first death sentence against a protester.

Also in the EU’s sanctions crosshairs: attack drones Iran supplied to Russia for its war on Ukraine. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell demanded Iran stop providing Moscow with military aid — which reports suggest might also include ballistic missiles — and said the bloc would take further steps, if needed.

“The drones provided by Iran to Russia allegedly a month ago,” Borrell said, “Are being used in that war, and it’s a clear violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231.”

The EU is discussing a ninth sanctions package against Moscow. More immediately, it will begin training thousands of Ukrainian troops in various member states, including Poland, Spain and France.

Borrell said Europe had so far provided Ukraine with about $8 billion worth of military equipment — or roughly 45 percent of what Washington has furnished.

He added that “We will continue isolating Russia internationally. We will continue imposing restrictive measures against the Russian economy. We stand ready to continue enforcing restrictive measures and target third countries involved, especially the ones … that are providing arms and military support [to Russia].”

Countering speculation that Europe might pressure Kyiv to enter peace talks, Borrell said it will be up to Ukraine to decide if and when to start talks with Russia, and that “We will continue supporting Ukraine until Ukraine’s victory — and it has to be understood, on the Ukrainian parameters.”

The war in Ukraine has sparked a massive refugee influx to the EU, along with soaring prices and an energy crunch.
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All extraditions to China from Europe could be blocked after a recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), in a judgment that campaigners described as a landmark decision with global ramifications.

Judges at the court in Strasbourg, France, unanimously ruled October 6 that Hung Tao Liu, a Taiwan national accused of telecoms fraud, should not be extradited from Poland to China as he could face ill-treatment or torture and may not have access to a fair trial.

The judges also ruled that Liu’s five-year detention in Poland while he appealed the extradition request was unlawful. The judgment is due to come into effect in January.

Crucially, Liu is neither a political activist nor critic of China, nor is he from a religious or ethnic minority, explained his Polish lawyer Marcin Gorski, a legal scholar at the University of Lodz.

“So, the outcome of the case is that basically, regardless of your personal status — whether you are a political activist involved in some sort of opposition activities in China or not — you must not be extradited to China, basically because any person being [sent] there is likely to be subject to ill-treatment,” Gorski told VOA.

Hung Tao Liu fled to Poland from Spain in 2016, after Spanish authorities arrested and extradited more than 200 suspects of Taiwanese origin to mainland China on accusations of telecoms fraud. Liu allegedly was the group’s ringleader.

Human rights groups accused Spain of ignoring warnings of ill-treatment and torture in China’s judicial system. “The Spanish government knew about the situation in China,” Jing-Jie Chen of the Madrid-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders told VOA.

“What the Chinese government tried to say is that we are going to have this diplomatic assurance, we’re going to ensure fair trials, we’re going to ensure that there won’t be any capital punishment or life imprisonment, so then it’s OK for you to send those people over here.

“This [ECHR] judgment also clearly says that it doesn’t really matter about these kind[s] of diplomatic assurances,” Chen said.

Liu was detained in Poland in 2017 after Interpol issued a “red notice” based on a request from Beijing authorities. Polish judges approved his extradition to China, a ruling later upheld by Poland’s Supreme Court in 2018. Liu then applied to the European Court of Human Rights, whose rulings take precedent over domestic courts.

Poland can appeal the ECHR verdict, but legal experts say it is unlikely to be overturned as the ruling was unanimous.

Forty-six countries are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, overseen by the ECHR in Strasbourg. Nations that are not signatories to the convention will also take note of the recent ruling, said lawyer Gorski.

“The judgment is likely to have an impact on the proceedings in these kind of cases going on worldwide. And we actually have a very good feedback of this judgment from also the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,” he told VOA.

The ruling could also impact relations between Europe and China.

“For instance, the impact of this decision on the ongoing process of negotiations and ratification of the trade deals with China now,” Gorski said.

China consistently rejects claims that it violates human rights and says the right to a fair trial is enshrined in law. Human rights campaigners say China does not grant international oversight of its judicial system and that torture, forced confessions and executions are common.
…

All extraditions to China from Europe could be blocked after a ruling by European judges. As Henry Ridgwell reports, human rights campaigners describe it as a landmark judgment with global ramifications. Videographer: Henry Ridgwell
…

The United States on Monday targeted Russian military’s supply chains, imposing sanctions on 14 individuals and 28 entities that it said were part of a transnational network that procures technology to support Moscow in its invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. Treasury also designated family members of Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, as well as individuals that it said worked as financial facilitators in Suleiman’s network.

“The United States will continue to disrupt Russia’s military supply chains and impose high costs on President Putin’s enablers, as well as all those who support Russia’s brutality against its neighbor,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

The U.S. Treasury blacklisted Milandr, a Russian microelectronics company that Washington says is part of Moscow’s military research and development structure. It has also designated three entities tied to the company, and several company executives.

The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned major military industrial firms in Russia and the Commerce Department has cut off exports of American-made components and U.S. technologies that have been used in some of Russia’s military hardware.

Russia has managed to procure drones from Iran that have been used to attack cities and power infrastructure in Ukraine. Iranian military entities and industries are already under heavy U.S. sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear development program.
…

Turkey is claiming a breakthrough in Sunday’s fatal bombing with security forces detaining a woman suspected of planting the bomb that killed six people and injured over 50 others. Ankara is accusing Syrian Kurdish militants backed by the United States of ordering the attack.

In the early hours of Monday morning in Istanbul, Turkish security forces arrested the woman suspected of planting the bombing in Sunday’s attack. Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu announced what authorities touted as a breakthrough.

Soylu said, “A short while ago, the person who carried out the incident, who left the bomb, was detained by the Istanbul police; 21 other people had been detained.”

Arrests are continuing, with more than 50 being held as of early Monday.

Video footage of a woman appearing to leave a bag at the site of the bombing and then running away was released shortly after the attack.

Turkish security forces named the suspect as Syrian national Ahlam Albashir. They claim she has confessed to being trained by the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK. The PKK in a statement Monday denied involvement in the bombing, saying it doesn’t target civilians.

So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The PKK has been fighting the Turkish state for greater Kurdish rights for more than 40 years. The militant group was linked to the bombing of an Istanbul football match in 2016, killing more than 40 people.

But Soylu, the Turkish interior minister, claims Sundays’ attack was organized in Kobani, a Syrian city controlled by the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia, which Ankara says is affiliated with the PKK, a charge it denies. The United States backs the YPG in its war against the Islamic State. Soylu speaking at the site of the Istanbul bombing says that Turkey needs to reconsider its ties with its American ally following Sunday’s attack.

Soylu said Turkey rejects the condolences of the American Embassy. Turkey, he said, does not accept it. The Turkish official said an alliance with a state that sends money from its own Senate to these groups, feeding the terror zones in Kobani, which aims to disturb Turkey’s peace, is — in his words — in a controversial situation. This is open and clear, Soylu said.

Washington’s backing of the YPG and its political affiliate, the PYD, is poisoning relations with its Turkish ally, says international relations professor Senem Aydin-Duzgit of Istanbul’s Sabanci University.

You have the American alliance with the Kurds, with PYD, in particular in northern Syria. So, there is this perception that America is sort of is an alliance with the PKK and the Kurdish nationalist movement. And that sort of creates kind of hostility as well.

The escalating diplomatic dispute between Turkey and United States comes as shopkeepers clear the devastation of Sunday’s bombing and, like the rest of the city, try to come to terms with this latest attack, as shopkeeper Lokman Kalkan explains.

He said, “It has been a disaster, you see. This is all that happened. People were fighting for their lives. There is nothing we can do,” he said.

Details of those killed by Sunday’s attack are now being released. A mother and son, a father and daughter, and a married couple, the oldest victim was 40.

 
…

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns is in Turkey to deliver a message to President Vladimir Putin’s foreign spy chief about the consequences of a potential Russian use of nuclear weapons, a White House spokesperson said.

In the first known high-level face-to-face U.S.-Russian contact since Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Burns was in Ankara on Monday to meet Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service.

“He is not conducting negotiations of any kind. He is not discussing settlement of the war in Ukraine,” said the spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“He is conveying a message on the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, and the risks of escalation to strategic stability,” the spokesperson said. “He will also raise the cases of unjustly detained US citizens.”

Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia who was sent to Moscow in late 2021 by U.S. President Joe Biden to caution Putin about the troop buildup around Ukraine, is not discussing a potential settlement to the war in Ukraine, the spokesperson said.

“We briefed Ukraine in advance on his trip. We firmly stick to our fundamental principle: nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

Putin has repeatedly said Russia will defend its territory with all available means, including nuclear weapons, if attacked. Putin says the West has engaged in nuclear blackmail against Russia.

The remarks raised particular concern in the West after Moscow declared in September that it had annexed four Ukrainian regions that its forces control parts of.

The U.S.-Russian contact in Turkey was first reported by Russia’s Kommersant newspaper. The Kremlin, asked about the Kommersant report, said it could neither confirm nor deny it. The SVR did not respond to a request for comment.

Beyond the war, Russia and the United States have a host of outstanding issues to discuss, ranging from the extension of a key nuclear arms reduction treaty and a Black Sea grain deal to a possible U.S.-Russian prisoner swap and the Syrian civil war.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, asked at a summit of the Group of 20 (G-20) leading economies in Indonesia about the U.S.-Russian contact in Turkey, said the United Nations was not involved.

“It’s very positive that the U.S. and Russia are having talks because that is an extremely relevant development in relation to the future, but we are not involved,” Guterres said.

Biden said this month he hoped Putin would be willing to discuss seriously a possible prisoner swap to secure the release of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, who was sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony on drugs charges.

Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who holds American, British, Canadian and Irish passports, was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in a Russian jail after being convicted of spying. He denied the charge.

Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer jailed in the United States, has been mentioned as a person who could be swapped for Griner and Whelan in any future prisoner exchange.

Kremlin says grain talks with U.N. last week were ‘constructive.’

Biden expects Russia to get more serious about prisoner swap for Griner.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden joined world leaders at the island resort of Bali, Indonesia, for the G-20 Summit hosted by President Joko Widodo.

“I don’t think I’m going home,” Biden joked in a meeting with Widodo at the sidelines of the summit. “You had me staying on the beach.”

“It’s great to see you again, Jokowi,” Biden said using the Indonesian leader’s nickname. “This is a — you’ve been a good friend.”

The friendly banter belies months of intense diplomatic back and forth between Washington and Jakarta ahead of the gathering of the leaders of the world’s twenty largest economies that has been overshadowed by the war in Ukraine and Western pressure to isolate Russia.

Seventeen G-20 members are represented by their heads of government, including leaders of the Group of Seven (G-7) leading industrialized nations as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not attending in person, and it is unclear whether he will participate virtually. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will participate virtually despite Ukraine not being the group’s member.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sidestepped the question of whether Biden is happy with the final list of attendees. He said Biden sees the summit as an opportunity for leaders of the world’s major economies to deal with the consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine and will focus on practical issues including food security, energy security and debt reform.

“And so, ‘happy/unhappy,’ I think, is not quite the right way to think about, you know, whether President Putin chose to show up or not,” Sullivan told VOA on board Air Force One Sunday, en route to Bali. “President Putin made his decision for his reasons under the pressures he’s facing.”

Sullivan declined to respond whether Biden is planning to walk out should Putin participate virtually.

“That’s a hypothetical that we have not yet engaged, in terms of what the President — how the President would react,” he said.

Optimal outcome

While Widodo had to navigate more geopolitical tensions than he had bargained for as summit host, from Jakarta’s perspective having Western leaders as well as leaders of China, Japan, South Korea, India and others, without embarrassing Moscow is an optimal outcome.

“Discussion[s] also very, very good and I’m glad that America and China [can] also be here,” Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Pandjaitan told reporters Saturday.

Inviting Zelenskyy was a diplomatic middle-ground for Widodo who maintained that he had no flexibility to disinvite Moscow despite boycott threats from Western leaders

“And ultimately, the Western countries flinched. They blinked; Indonesia got its way,” Aaron Connelly, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies told VOA. “Indonesia is very comfortable in this space, being a nonaligned power, trying to convene great powers that are at odds with each other.”

Jakarta will try to keep its focus on three main pillars it has selected under its presidency — global health architecture, sustainable energy transition and digital transformation. It wants to ensure the agenda developed not just by governments but also business stakeholders and civil society are carried forward to the next G-20 meeting under India as next year’s chair, Dinna Prapto Raharja, founder of the Jakarta-based think tank Synergy Policies told VOA.

Additionally, with geopolitical fault lines sharpened by the war in Ukraine, Jakarta is aiming to not stir tensions further and keep its options open.

Indonesia is facing a new kind of equilibrium, she said. “We don’t know where it will end. But definitely it won’t be the era of unipolarism where the U.S. will be the only major power.”

Biden – Jokowi

Widodo’s government is aiming for $89 billion in investments for next year and aggressively seeking funds for the relocation of its capital to Borneo, estimated to be a $34 billion project.

In their meeting, Biden and Widodo discussed expansion of their partnership including through the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, according to the White House. PGII is the West’s infrastructure funding scheme to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Washington and Jakarta are unveiling PGII initiatives on Indonesia’s energy transition during the summit. The countries are also launching a $698 million deal to develop climate-conscious transportation infrastructure in five Indonesian provinces and increase access to finance for Indonesia’s women-owned businesses and micro to medium sized enterprises.

Meanwhile trials of a nearly $8 billion high-speed railway project connecting Jakarta and Bandung, part of China’s BRI will be conducted during the G-20 summit and is scheduled to be launched next year.
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Art restorers in the Italian city of Florence have begun a six-month project to clean and virtually “unveil” a long-censored nude painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the most prominent women in the history of Italian art.

Swirling veils and drapery were added to the “Allegory of Inclination” some 70 years after Gentileschi painted the life-size female nude, believed to be a self-portrait, in 1616.

The work to reveal the image as originally painted comes as Gentileschi’s contribution to Italian Baroque art is getting renewed attention in the #MeToo era, both for her artistic achievements but also for breaking into the male-dominated art world after being raped by one of her art teachers.

Her work was featured in a 2020 exhibit at the National Gallery in London.

“Through her, we can talk about how important it is to restore artwork, how important it is to restore the stories of women to the forefront,” said Linda Falcone, coordinator of the Artemisia Up Close project.

“Allegory of Inclination” originally was commissioned for the family home of Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, the great-nephew of the famed artist. The building later became the Casa Buonarotti museum, and the painting was displayed until recently on the ceiling in a gilded frame. When lead conservator Elizabeth Wick removed the painting in late September, a shower of 400-year-old dust was released.

Wick’s team of restorers is using ultraviolet light, diagnostic imaging and X-rays to differentiate Gentileschi’s brush strokes from those of the artist that covered the nudity. The public can watch the project underway at the museum through April 23.

Restorers won’t be able to remove the veils because the cover-up was done too soon after the original, raising the risk that Gentileschi’s painting would be damaged in the process.

Instead, the restoration team plans to create a digital image of the original version that will be displayed in an exhibition on the project opening in September 2023.

Gentileschi arrived in Florence shortly after the trial in Rome of her rapist, during which the then-17-year-old was forced to testify with ropes tied around her fingers that were progressively tightened in a test of her honesty.

She also had to endure a physical examination in the courtroom behind a curtain to confirm that she was no longer a virgin. Eventually, her rapist was convicted and sentenced to eight months in prison.

“Somebody else would have been crushed by this experience,” Wick said. “But Artemisia bounces back. She comes up to Florence. She gets this wonderful commission to paint a full-length nude figure for the ceiling of Casa Buonarroti. So, I think she’s showing people, ‘This is what I can do.'”

While in Florence, Gentileschi also won commissions from the Medici family. Her distinctive, dramatic and energetic style emerged, taking inspiration from the most renowned Baroque painter of the time, Caravaggio. Many of her paintings featured female heroines, often in violent scenes and often nude.

She was 22 when she painted “Allegory of Inclination,” which was commissioned by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger. Another member of the family, Leonardo Buonarroti, decided to have it embellished to protect the sensibilities of his wife and children.

“This is one of her first paintings. In the Florentine context, it was her debut painting, the same year she was then accepted into the Academy of Drawing, which was the first drawing academy in Europe at the time,” Falcone said.

With the younger Michelangelo as her patron, Gentileschi gained entry to the cultural milieu of the time.

“She was able to hobnob with Galileo and with other great thinkers. So this almost illiterate woman was suddenly at the university level, producing works of art that were then, you know, appreciated by the Grand Duke,” Falcone said. “And she became a courtly painter from then on.”
…

An explosion on one of Istanbul’s most popular pedestrian thoroughfares killed four people and injured 38 Sunday, authorities said. 

The cause of the blast on Istiklal Avenue was not immediately clear. Five prosecutors were assigned to investigate the explosion, state-run Anadolu news agency said. 

A video posted online showed flames erupting and a loud bang, as pedestrians turned and ran away. Other footage showed ambulances, fire trucks and police at the scene. Social media users said shops were shuttered and the avenue closed. 

Turkey’s media watchdog imposed a temporary ban on reporting on the explosion — a move that prevents broadcasters from showing videos of the moment of the blast or its aftermath. The Supreme Council of Radio and Television has imposed similar bans in the past, following attacks and accidents. 

Istanbul Gov. Ali Yerlikaya tweeted the death toll and said those injured were being treated. 

Turkey was hit by a string of deadly bombings between 2015 and 2017 by the Islamic State group and outlawed Kurdish groups. 
…

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz discussed energy and trade ties with Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh during a visit to Hanoi on Sunday, the first for a German leader in more than a decade.

Scholz’s stop in Vietnam on his way to the G20 leaders’ summit in Indonesia, highlights Vietnam’s growing role in global supply chains as many German firms consider diversifying their manufacturing operations by expanding their presence beyond China, their main hub in Asia.

At a joint news conference with Chinh, Scholz said Berlin wanted deeper trade relations with Vietnam and would support the country’s transition to a greener economy, including through the expansion of the metro system in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital.

The Hanoi visit follows Scholz’s trip to China last week, the first by a Western leader in three years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. He will next visit Singapore before heading to the G20 summit on Nov 15-16.

Vietnam and Singapore are the only countries in Southeast Asia that have a free trade agreement with the European Union. As a result, they are the EU’s biggest trading partners in the region.

Germany is Vietnam’s second-largest trading partner among EU states after the Netherlands, with exchanges worth $7.8 billion last year, according to law firm Dezan Shira — far less however than the United States, China, Japan and South Korea.

About 500 German firms operate in Vietnam, of which around 80 have manufacturing plants in the country, according to the German chamber of commerce in Vietnam, AHK.

Among them are engineering giant Bosch BOSH.NS, energy firm Messer, and several smaller companies involved in the global automotive supply chain.

Many more are looking to diversify some of their activities away from China where about 5,000 German companies operate, AHK head in Vietnam, Marko Walde, told Reuters.

Over 90% of German firms planning such a move look at Southeast Asia as their preferred choice, Walde said, noting that Vietnam and Thailand were favorites in the region.

 
…

Britain’s Defense Ministry said Sunday in its daily intelligence update on Ukraine that Russian Education Minister Sergey Kravstov has said that “military training will return to Russian schools, beginning in September 2023.”

This training included “contingencies for a chemical or nuclear attack, first aid and experience handling and firing Kalashnikov rifles.”

According to the report, “Russian officials attempted to revive this training in 2014 following Russia’s invasion of Crimea. It was hoped that the initiative would improve the quality of conscripts. Eight years later, little has changed, and the quality of Russian conscripts remains poor, with low morale and limited training.”

Russia is now drafting the curriculum for the training program, the report said. The development of the curriculum is expected to be completed by the end of the year and will then undergo an approvals process.

“This training likely intends to prepare students with military skills as they approach conscription age and to increase the take-up for mobilization and conscription drives,” the report said. “This initiative is also likely to be part of a wider project to instill an ideology of patriotism and trust in public institutions in the Russian population.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the victory of Ukrainian troops in Kherson on Saturday.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said that defense forces have won back control of more than 60 settlements in the Kherson region and promised that Ukrainian troops will “liberate our entire land from the invaders.”

But the Ukrainian president also cautioned vigilance. While people are celebrating in Kherson, further east in the Donetsk area, he said, brutal battles are being fought every day.

“It’s hell there,” he said.

As the Russian forces withdrew from Kherson, Zelenskyy said, they destroyed critical infrastructure there, including communications, the water supply, and plants supplying heat and electricity. He also cautioned Kherson residents that retreating Russian soldiers had mined the area.

“Almost 2,000 explosive items have already been removed from the areas but there is a lot more to be done,” he said.

Images by the Planet Lab, a data imaging service, show Russian troops digging trenches and building fortifications on the east bank of the Dnipro River, according to images published on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Images taken Nov. 10 show a new line of trenches almost 2 kilometers long along the riverbank north of the Kakhovskaya dam. Satellite photos also confirm that the Russian army blew up several spans of a bridge leading to the Kakhovskaya dam.

The White House hailed as an “extraordinary victory” Ukraine’s liberation of the city of Kherson from Russia, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Saturday.

“It does look as though the Ukrainians have just won an extraordinary victory in Kherson, where the one regional capital that Russia had seized in this war is now back under a Ukrainian flag — and that is quite a remarkable thing,” he told reporters while accompanying President Joe Biden to the ASEAN summit in Cambodia.

His comments came after Zelenskyy declared Kherson “ours” in a video message on Telegram.

Grain initiative

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Saturday with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Blinken discussed with Kuleba the United States’ unwavering commitment to assist Ukraine with accelerated humanitarian aid and winterization efforts to mitigate the damage from Russia’s continued attacks on critical infrastructure.

The two officials also talked about Ukraine’s continued effectiveness on the battlefield, and Blinken reiterated that “the timing and substance of any negotiation framework remains Ukraine’s decision.”

Blinken and Kuleba reaffirmed the importance of the Black Sea Grain Initiative’s renewal before it expires Nov. 19 and its role in supporting global food security.

Russia says it wants unhindered access to markets for its own food and fertilizer exports as part any renewal of the grain initiative that allows Ukraine to export grain from Black Sea ports. Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of playing “hunger games” with the world.

Russian threat

No one should “underestimate the continuing threat posed by the Russian Federation,” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said in a statement Saturday welcoming the Russian withdrawal from Kherson and proclaiming that Britain and the international community will continue to support Ukraine.

Addressing Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson, Wallace also posed the question, “Now with that also being surrendered, ordinary people of Russia must surely ask themselves ‘What was it all for?’”
…

Harrowing, previously unseen images from 1938’s Kristallnacht pogrom against German and Austrian Jews have surfaced in a photograph collection donated to Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial, the organization said Wednesday. 

One shows a crowd of smiling, well-dressed middle-aged German men and women standing casually as a Nazi officer smashes a storefront window. In another, brownshirts carry heaps of Jewish books, presumably for burning. Another image shows a Nazi officer splashing gasoline on the pews of a synagogue before it’s set alight. 

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, released the photographs on the 84th anniversary of the November pogrom also known as Kristallnacht, or “The Night of Broken Glass.” Mobs of Germans and Austrians attacked, looted and burned Jewish shops and homes, destroyed 1,400 synagogues, killed 92 Jews and sent another 30,000 to concentration camps. 

The violence is widely considered a starting point for the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany murdered 6 million Jews. 

Jonathan Matthews, head of Yad Vashem’s photo archive, said the photos dispel a Nazi myth that the attacks were “a spontaneous outburst of violence” rather than a pogrom orchestrated by the state. Firefighters, SS special police officers and members of the general public are all seen in the photos participating in the Kristallnacht. The photographers themselves were an integral part of the events. 

Matthews said these were the first photos he was aware of depicting actions taking place indoors, as “most of the images we have of Kristallnacht are images from outside.” Altogether, he said, the photos “give you a much more intimate image of what’s happening.” 

The photos were taken by Nazi photographers during the pogrom in the city of Nuremberg and the nearby town of Fuerth. They wound up in the possession of a Jewish American serviceman who served in Germany during World War II — how, precisely, is uncertain as he never talked about them to his family. 

His descendants, who declined to give his name, donated the album to Yad Vashem as part of the institution’s effort to collect Holocaust-era objects kept by survivors and their families. 

Yad Vashem said the photos help demonstrate how the German public was aware of what was going on, and that the violence was part of a meticulously coordinated pogrom carried out by Nazi authorities. They even brought in photographers to document the atrocities. 

Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan said the photos will “serve as everlasting witnesses long after the survivors are no longer here to bear testimony to their own experiences.” 

 
…

FTX was engulfed in more chaos on Saturday when the crypto exchange said it had detected unauthorized access and analysts said hundreds of millions of dollars of assets had been moved from the platform in “suspicious circumstances.”

FTX filed for bankruptcy on Friday, one of the highest profile crypto blowups, after traders rushed to withdraw $6 billion from the platform in just 72 hours and rival exchange Binance abandoned a proposed rescue deal.

FTX Chief Executive John J. Ray III said on Saturday that the company was working with law enforcement and regulators and was making “every effort to secure all assets, wherever located.”

“Among other things, we are in the process of removing trading and withdrawal functionality,” he said.

The exchange’s dramatic fall from grace has seen its 30-year-old founder Sam Bankman-Fried morph from being the poster child of crypto’s successes to the protagonist of the industry’s biggest crash.

Bankman-Fried, who lives in the Bahamas, has also been the subject of speculation about his whereabouts. On Saturday he told Reuters that he was in the Bahamas, denying speculation on Twitter that he had flown by private jet to South America.

The turmoil at FTX has seen at least $1 billion in customer funds vanish from the platform, sources told Reuters on Friday. Bankman-Fried had transferred $10 billion of customer funds to his trading company, Alameda Research, the sources said.

New problems emerged on Saturday when FTX’s U.S. general counsel Ryne Miller said in a Twitter post that the firm’s digital assets were being moved into so-called cold storage “to mitigate damage upon observing unauthorized transactions.”

Cold storage refers to crypto wallets that are not connected to the internet to guard against hackers.

Blockchain analytics firm Nansen said it saw $659 million in outflows from FTX International and FTX U.S. in the last 24 hours.

Elliptic, a separate blockchain analytics firm, said that about $473 million worth of crypto assets were “moved out of FTX wallets in suspicious circumstances early this morning,” but that it could not confirm that the tokens had been stolen.

Crypto exchange Kraken said: “We can confirm our team is aware of the identity of the account associated with the ongoing FTX hack, and we are committed to working with law enforcement to ensure they have everything they need to sufficiently investigate this matter.”

FTX was not immediately available for comment about the outflows or Kraken’s statement.

A document that Bankman-Fried shared with investors on Thursday and was reviewed by Reuters showed FTX had $13.86 billion in liabilities and $14.6 billion in assets. However, only $900 million of those assets were liquid, leading to the cash crunch that ended with the company filing for bankruptcy.

In its bankruptcy petition, FTX Trading said it has $10 billion to $50 billion in assets, $10 billion to $50 billion in liabilities, and more than 100,000 creditors. Ray, a restructuring expert, was appointed to take over as CEO.

The collapse shocked investors and prompted fresh calls to regulate the crypto asset sector, which has seen losses stack up this year as cryptocurrency prices collapsed.

Bitcoin fell below $16,000 for the first time since 2020 after Binance abandoned its rescue deal on Wednesday.

On Saturday it was trading around $16,831, down by more than 75% from the all-time high of $69,000 it reached in November last year BTC=BTSP.

“We believe cryptocurrency markets remain too small and too siloed to cause contagion in financial markets, with an $890 billion market cap in comparison to U.S. equity’s $41 trillion,” Citi analysts wrote.

“Over four years, FTX raised $1.8 billion from venture capital and pension funds. This is the primary way financial markets could suffer, as it may have further minor implications for portfolio shocks in a volatile macro regime.”

The U.S. securities regulator is investigating FTX.com’s handling of customer funds amid a liquidity crunch, as well its crypto-lending activities, a source with knowledge of the inquiry said.
…

The United Nations refugee agency announced Friday it has launched a global funding campaign to help people forcibly displaced by war and persecution survive the bitterly cold winter ahead.

The UNHCR’s campaign aims to raise $700 million this year to help families who are living under perilous conditions in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and across the Middle East, so they can cope with freezing temperatures.

UNHCR spokeswoman Olga Sarrado said the many people who have been forced to flee their homes will be facing an extremely harsh winter. She said it will be difficult for them to provide for their daily needs given the steep rise in the cost of food, fuel, and other basic commodities. She added they also will struggle with the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and threats posed by the climate crisis.

“For many of the world’s forcibly displaced, this coming winter will be far more challenging than in recent years,” said Sarrado. “Many displaced families will have no option but to choose between food and warmth as they struggle to heat their shelters, source warm clothing, and cook hot meals.”

The UNHCR is suffering from a serious funding shortfall that has forced it to scale back some life-saving programs around the world. The agency cannot count on the usual international donors to provide for its needs. Therefore, the global winter funding campaign is reaching out to everyone for support.

Sarrado noted the campaign is appealing to governments, public and private corporations, and individuals to help keep refugees safe and warm this winter.

“We see already night temperatures dropping two to four degrees in all these regions, but this is just the beginning,” said Sarrado. “So support is needed to be able to start delivering cash assistance, thermal blankets, warm clothing, repairing the houses as soon as possible before the winter becomes even harsher.

The UNHCR reports some 7 million Ukrainians are displaced inside the country, and 7.6 million have fled as refugees across Europe. UNHCR teams are providing supplies to the displaced Ukrainians and helping reinforce homes and shelters to keep out the cold, said Sarrado.

In Afghanistan, she said the UNHCR plans to support 50,500 families, or about 400,000 people, with cash assistance. She said aid workers are delivering essential items such as blankets, solar panels and winter insulation for tents to help displaced families survive the harsh winter months.
…

The White House hailed as an “extraordinary victory” Ukraine’s liberation of the city of Kherson from Russia forces.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Saturday, “It does look as though the Ukrainians have just won an extraordinary victory in Kherson, where the one regional capital that Russia had seized in this war is now back under a Ukrainian flag — and that is quite a remarkable thing.” Sullivan’s spoke with reporters while accompanying President Joe Biden to the ASEAN summit in Cambodia.

His comments came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared Kherson “ours” in a video message on Telegram.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Saturday with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Blinken discussed with Kuleba the United States’ unwavering commitment to assist Ukraine with accelerated humanitarian aid and winterization efforts to mitigate the damage from Russia’s continued attacks on critical infrastructure.

The two officials also talked about Ukraine’s continued effectiveness on the battlefield, and Blinken reiterated that “the timing and substance of any negotiation framework remains Ukraine’s decision.

Blinken and Kuleba reaffirmed the importance of the Black Sea Grain Initiative’s renewal before it expires November 19 and its role in supporting global food security.

Russia is refusing to renew the grain initiative and allow Ukraine to export grain from Black Sea ports unless Western sanctions are lifted on its own food and fertilizer exports. Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of playing “hunger games” with the world.

No one should “underestimate the continuing threat posed by the Russian Federation,” said British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace in a statement welcoming the Russian withdrawal from Kherson and proclaiming that Britain and the international community will continue to support Ukraine.

Addressing Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson, Wallace also posed the question, “Now with that also being surrendered, ordinary people of Russia must surely ask themselves ‘What was it all for?’” 

Britain’s Defense Ministry said Saturday in its daily update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson “is a public recognition of the difficulties faced by Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnipro River.

In the intelligence update posted on Twitter, the ministry said while the withdrawal came only two days after its announcement, “it is likely that the withdrawal process had already started as early as 22 October 2022 when Russian-installed figures in Kherson urged civilians to leave the city.”

Russia said Friday it had finished the withdrawal of its troops from the west bank of the Dnipro River and no soldiers or equipment had been left behind.

Retreating Russian soldiers, though, painted a different picture. A Russian soldier described how he and his fellow soldiers were asked to hastily change into civilian clothing so they would not be detected. Also, some of the retreating soldiers reportedly drowned in the river while trying to escape.

For those Russian troops who did not make it out of the city, “the only chance to avoid death is to immediately surrender,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate said.

Ukrainian forces entered the city of Kherson, a strategic port city on the Dnipro River,  Friday, as Russian forces retreated in haste. People rejoiced in the streets of Kherson welcoming the Ukrainian troops. Many recounted horror stories of Russian soldiers killing civilians and looting homes.

According to Serhiy Khlan, deputy for the Kherson Regional Council, multiple videos circulating on social media show locals enthusiastically welcoming  Ukrainian soldiers with blue and yellow flags as they entered the city.

“Today is a historic day. We are getting the south of the country back, we are getting Kherson back,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Friday evening video address.

Zelenskyy cautioned that Russian forces had placed a large number of landmines in the city, and he noted Ukrainian forces would start working as soon as possible to remove them.

Kherson has been a significant strategic region forming a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014. Kherson is one of the four provinces that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed in September, a move the United States and other countries have condemned as illegal.

War’s toll

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the conflict has killed thousands of people, displaced millions and destroyed Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

In mid-October, the U.N. refugee agency said there were more than 7.6 million Ukrainian refugees across Europe, including 2.85 million in Russia. It said another 7 million people have been uprooted within Ukraine.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

Britain’s Defense Ministry said Saturday in its daily update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson, announced this week, “is a public recognition of the difficulties faced by Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnipro river.”

In the intelligence update posted on Twitter, the ministry said that while the withdrawal came only two days after its announcement, “it is likely that the withdrawal process had already started as early as 22 October 2022 when Russian-installed figures in Kherson urged civilians to leave the city.”

The British report said it is a “realistic possibility” that “Russian military equipment and forces in civilian attire had been evacuating in conjunction with the 80,000 stated evacuated civilians in recent weeks.”

“It is likely that Ukraine has retaken large areas of Kherson oblast on the west bank of the Dnipro River, and that its forces are now largely in control of Kherson city itself,” the report said. “It is likely that Russia is still attempting to evacuate forces from other areas of the oblast across the river to defensible positions on the east bank.”

Ukrainian forces entered the city of Kherson on Friday as Russian forces retreated in haste. Villagers came out of hiding to welcome the Ukrainian troops and recounted horror stories of Russian soldiers killing civilians and looting homes.

According to Serhiy Khlan, deputy for the Kherson Regional Council, the city was almost fully under the control of Ukrainian forces. Multiple videos circulating on social media show Ukrainian soldiers planting yellow and blue flags in the city while local residents celebrated.

“Today is a historic day. We are getting the south of the country back, we are getting Kherson back,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Friday evening video address.

Zelenskyy said Russian forces had placed what he called a large number of landmines in the city and said Ukrainian forces would start working as soon as possible to remove them.

Russia said Friday that it had finished pulling out its troops from the west bank of the Dnipro River and that no soldiers or equipment had been left behind.

Retreating Russian soldiers painted a different picture, however. A Russian soldier described how he and his fellow soldiers were asked to hastily change into civilian clothing so they would not be detected. Also, some of the retreating soldiers reportedly drowned in the river while trying to escape.

For those Russian troops who did not make it out of the city, “the only chance to avoid death is to immediately surrender,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate said.

Kherson, a strategic port city on the Dnipro River, was captured within days after Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. On Wednesday, Moscow announced it had made the “difficult decision” to withdraw from the west bank of the river that includes Kherson.

The reports of a swift Russian withdrawal from Kherson came sooner than Western officials had predicted. U.S. Army General Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated earlier this week that the retreat would take “days and maybe even weeks.”

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov had also expressed skepticism that Russia could withdraw so quickly, fearing a potential trap by Russia to lure Ukrainian forces into brutal urban combat.

For Russia, Kherson has been a significant strategic region forming a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014. Kherson is one of the four provinces that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed in September, a move the United States and other countries have condemned as illegal.

Meanwhile, Reznikov told Reuters that Ukraine was planning on building up a powerful military and defense industry, and this week’s state takeovers of privately held stakes in strategic companies are part of that drive, he noted.

Ukraine is building an “army of drones” to resist Russia’s invasion, Reznikov said. In recent weeks, Moscow has aimed waves of Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones at vital Ukrainian infrastructure.

“We are trying to be like Israel — more independent during the next years,” he said in an interview in Kyiv on Thursday. “I think the best answer [can be seen] in Israel … developing their national industry for their armed forces. It made them independent,” he said.

Black Sea grain initiative

Rebeca Grynspan, the secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, and Martin Griffiths, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, met with a Russian delegation Friday in Geneva to discuss Moscow’s grievances about the Black Sea grains export initiative and to address the need for unimpeded food and fertilizer exports, a U.N. spokesperson said.

The negotiations come eight days before the deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July is due to be renewed. The accord has helped stave off a global food crisis, allowing the export of food and fertilizers from several of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

The first shipment of donated fertilizers is expected to head to Malawi in the coming week, U.N. officials said Friday, following a meeting with a Russian delegation in Geneva.

“The world cannot afford to let global fertilizer accessibility problems become a global food shortage; therefore the U.N. calls on all actors to expedite the removal of any remaining impediments to the export and transportation of fertilizers to countries most in need,” the U.N. said.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters before the meeting that “work is underway” to resolve a number of issues related to the grain deal that concern Russia.

Moscow has indicated that it could pull out of the deal, set to expire on Nov. 19, if there is no progress addressing its concerns.

Russia suspended its participation for four days last month in response to a drone attack on Moscow’s fleet in Crimea that it blamed on Ukraine. Kyiv has not claimed responsibility and denies using the grain program’s security corridor for military purposes.

Meanwhile, the Joint Coordination Center reports that four vessels left Ukrainian ports Friday carrying a total of 120,150 metric tons of grain and other food products under the Black Sea Grain Initiative while five inbound vessels transited the maritime humanitarian corridor toward Ukrainian ports.

War’s toll

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the conflict has killed thousands of people, displaced millions and destroyed Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

In mid-October, the U.N. refugee agency said there were more than 7.6 million Ukrainian refugees across Europe, including 2.85 million in Russia. It said another 7 million people have been uprooted within Ukraine.

Since February, “aid workers have provided critical aid and protection services to some 13.5 million people across all regions of Ukraine,” Stephanie Tremblay, an associate U.N. spokesperson, told reporters Thursday in New York.

Late Wednesday, Milley estimated that about 200,000 soldiers — 100,000 Russian troops and 100,000 Ukrainian troops — had been killed in the fighting so far, Reuters reported. Milley said about 40,000 civilians caught up in the fighting have also been killed.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

Britain’s House of Lords shares some characteristics with the Chinese National People’s Congress: their signature colors are red, and neither is elected by popular vote.

They are also the world’s two largest legislatures.

After the rapid-fire departures this year of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss from 10 Downing Street, the House of Lords is set to grow even bigger, despite demands for a reduction.

With around 800 members, the upper chamber of the U.K. parliament lags behind the nearly 3,000 delegates that make up China’s unicameral Congress.

But the House of Lords is comfortably larger than any other chamber in a democracy. India, with a population of 1.4 billion, caps the membership of its upper house at 250.

The House of Lords has long been subject to demands for reform to make it more representative and less “a chamber festering with grotesques and has beens,” in the words of a parliamentary writer in The Times newspaper.

However, by convention, departing prime ministers are entitled to nominate a “resignation honor’s list” -– typically allies, aides and associates who are elevated to peerages.

Johnson’s 20-strong resignation list is being reviewed by a vetting committee, and some of his picks are likely to prove controversial.

Truss has the same entitlement to reward her followers, despite serving only 49 days.

Her successor, Rishi Sunak, will respect the convention and not meddle in their selections, his official spokesperson told reporters Tuesday.

Baron of Siberia

Before resigning, Johnson had already elevated about 90 peers during his three years in office, including his brother Jo, flouting an official recommendation to scale back the chamber.

In 2020, Johnson installed his Moscow-born friend Evgeny Lebedev as “Baron Lebedev of Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and of Siberia in the Russian Federation,” despite the reported objections of U.K. intelligence chiefs to the newspaper tycoon.

Once dominated by hereditary peers, the chamber today is composed of lifetime political appointees along with people nominated after serving in prominent public or private-sector roles, and Church of England clerics.

Many have been donors to the ruling Conservatives, including Peter Cruddas, who was made a peer by Johnson against the advice of the Lords’ vetting body following a “cash for access” political scandal.

A reform commission including senior Tory Lords recommended in 2017 that the chamber be reduced to 600 members, only allowing one entrant for every two departures.

The report has languished since, with successive governments proving reluctant to dispense with their powers of patronage, especially when the House of Lords is busy frustrating their legislative agenda.

But all sides pay lip service to the idea of change. Only 29% of the Lords are women. And its membership is hardly national, with just under half coming from London and southeast England.

The opposition Labour Party has vowed to resurrect a reform drive begun by Tony Blair’s government in the late 1990s.

One idea would see the House of Lords replaced by an indirectly elected assembly of regions and U.K. nations, with the power to refer the government to the Supreme Court in the case of constitutional breaches.

‘Democratically unacceptable’

“The system is the problem — it’s not just the recent turmoil of changing prime ministers,” said Jess Garland, director of policy at the Electoral Reform Society.

“The blueprint for reform is there. There’s a real democratic need for the lords to be appointed by the people who are ultimately affected by their laws,” she told Agence France-Presse.

“We might see a list of lords from Liz Truss at some point. But to have no say in who sits there is democratically unacceptable.”

As it stands, the upper chamber cannot override legislation sent from the popularly elected House of Commons. But it can amend and delay bills.

The House of Lords enjoys far more influence than the ornamental National People’s Congress, which is set in March to rubber-stamp the Communist Party’s decision last month to grant a historic third term to President Xi Jinping.

Since Xi took control of China in 2012, Britain is on its fifth prime minister.

The latest, Sunak, believes the upper house plays a “vitally important role” in U.K. democracy, according to his spokeseperson.

But he said constitutional reform was not an “immediate priority,” as the new prime minister tackles an economic crisis inherited from Truss — some of whose authors could now be rewarded with titles.
…